Second Weekend In Connecticut

Departure is looming once again, and I'm ready for it. The extra time here has gone well and people have been very kind, but I'm ready to be away and settled!

The Averill Farm

On Friday the sweet S family from church brought me along on their annual apple picking trip; that was fun. I've never been on an American fall apple orchard experience(Even though yes, we do actually have apple trees in NE). I picked about six apples for myself and the S family picked a bushel or so. Then they treated me to the locally made doughnuts, which were so good. I bought a hand made woven basket at the Orchard that had been made in Africa and was being sold as a good cause sort of thing. I prefer my mementos and souvenirs to be practical things. 

 Yours Truly and the Giant Pumpkin

Miss Emilee S and the Giant Pumpkin, just because she's way cuter than I am and she makes the Pumpkin look a lot bigger.

Random fact: Did you know that Connecticut has only eight counties, and Nebraska has ninety three? And did you know that Abolitionist fanatic John Brown was born in Torrington, CT?

After having lunch back at the S home I was deposited at the house of another church family, where I stayed the weekend. The Si house is a large and well-organized home, and mostly I was lazy and stayed out of the way!

Two of the eight Si ladies. Saturday afternoon a few of us went to a small concert by Charlie Zahm at a nearby Independent Living facility. Afterward we stopped at a local ice cream shop.

Today, Sunday, I'm back with the P family. We have plans to visit the Noah Webster house tomorrow, and then departure is scheduled for Tuesday morning. If anyone wants to talk to me before departure, Monday night is open!

Just because you asked....

I guess the down side of starting off blogging often is that people start to expect daily updates! Yesterday was a quiet day. I stayed at home and worked on communications and dances. The P parents are in Vermont for a few days, and of course the other Ps have things to do, so it works out well to just work from my computer. Miss P and I did go out for a very nice Thai dinner last night, and then watched "Persuasion." And apparently my host and roommate has panic attacks in bed while dreaming of furniture falling on her head. It's really quite interesting. Today was also quiet. I got things done; the P's worked. Tonight Miss P and I are going to dinner at the home of some church friends. I'll be spending this weekend with the C family for a change of scenery. Unless something unexpected comes up, I'm done sight-seeing.
 

New England in the Fall

 I still can't decide if the fall colors really are prettier here as compared to NE, or if there's just way more trees here to be colorful.

Dad, I think we should paint our garage doors red. Or maybe dark green.

And we should have a fence like this, too.

 All the pictures in this post are from Old Sturbridge Village.

The view from the covered bridge.

Textiles and Costumes at OSV

There were several nice appliqued and pieced quilts at the Village. I prefer whitework, but you've got to admit the one above is pretty neat. Very nice small stitches.

Now, about the costumes I saw: most of the men I saw were wearing trousers, shirt, waistcoat and stock; most of them had hats and some of them had coats. The gift shop at OSV sells reproduction cotton prints(Marcus Fabrics; $11 a yard at OSV and apparently only available to particular sellers) and it looked like most of the women's gowns were made from that collection. However, it seemed to me that the women's gowns weren't well fitted. I couldn't see that they were wearing corsets; though I have to say they were all wearing caps and I saw at least one poke bonnet.

Here's another appliqued quilt that has a traditional underlying quilt pattern.

Here's the only period tailcoat and waistcoat I saw; the waistcoat was completely quilted.

This was a super tiny military tailcoat. Perhaps a young music man?
And that's the extent of period pieces I saw at OSV.

Second Day Tourism

Well, the visas didn't come through on time and the new flight plan has us leaving next Tuesday, so I needn't have rushed to go anywhere! The P family are all really busy, so I'll likely end up just doing my computer work at their house for most of the time. Being this close to Boston is so tempting, but there's not any reasonable train service from Hartford and taxis and rentals are way too expensive. So here I am!

Anyway, speaking of sight-seeing today some of the P family and I drove(In the Toyota Highlander) up and over the Massachusetts line to Old Sturbridge Village. OSV is a village made up of various early nineteenth-century buildings that were moved to the location to make a living history museum.

There were two church buildings- a Congregationalist church and a Quaker meeting place. This is the Congregationalist church(Have I mentioned that I am Presbyterian?). All the buildings were fairly simple and I would say perhaps not completely furnished; some of the houses were set up more like museums while others were more like the living history sites I know.

Here's the entrance to the Parsonage. Most of the homes had wallpaper of this style; some of them may have been stenciled. The Village was pretty quiet, since we went on a weekday and school is in; so that was nice. However, because of that and because it's off-season, there were fewer reenactors about.It might be worth it to go on a busier weekend just to talk to more reenactors.

Most of the homes had bread ovens in the kitchen fireplaces, which I thought was nice. The Fort back home is too rustic to have bread ovens. There were some fireplace spiders for sale here, but the cheapest was $60. I don't know if that's normal or not, but that's too much for me to pay at present just to simplify my rare fireside cooking.

 

Mr. and Mrs. P outside of the Parsonage. They've been so gracious to have me, especially since my planned four day stay has turned into ten.

This was the grandest house among the lot; it had Masonic paintings all over one big room upstairs which made for a rather creepy dance hall. There was also a basement kitchen that had a low ceiling- I touched it.

 

There were several very nice herb gardens around the Village that must have taken a great deal of upkeep. Unfortunately by the end of our tour it was raining rather steadily, so only one garden was photographically captured.

Many of the doors and woodwork trim were colorfully painted. I liked that, but I think overall the overdone multi-colored paisley-floral prints, wallpapers, curtains and clothing of the 1830's are not quite my style of choice. It totally made me think of the "Cranford" busybodies.

I like wood.

There were several spinning wheels, but none of them were in use. There was also a very interesting water-run carding machine(for carding un-spun wool), a gristmill and sawmill. It took us nearly all the five hours we planned for to see most of the Village. We did pause for lunch at the "Tavern" which actually had pretty good food. I had New England chowder for the second time in my life, only this time I had it in New England. So it was a good long day, well spent.

The Cemetery

I don't recall the name of the church connected to this cemetery, but it had the kind of stones I like: old ones.

This is one of the earliest ones I saw, from 1718.

A lot of the older stones from before 1800 had very similar images. Like the winged soul stones I saw in Scotland, I'm guessing the point of this winged skull is to remind us of our own mortality, and the fact that death comes in God's time, not ours. Just like visas.

 

 Here's the other type of winged soul I saw today. I think the nose looks too funny to remind of mortality.

See Mom and Dad, I'm still alive!

Later on I stopped at a smaller civil war era cemetery on a hill.

It had a chapel.

And lots of towers.

And then I went home to dinner.

Day Two in CT

The visa situation has probably been settled, but I've not heard yet what the outcome is. Pins and needles, people! But, since I don't know if I'll be here for two days or twenty, I planned to spend the first two sight-seeing. Today the P family graciously loaned me their vehicle this afternoon, and I drove(yes, by myself) about 45 minutes to Wethersfield, which is on the outskirts of Hartford.

 I visited the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum, which is made up of three colonial houses all in a row on Wethersfield main street. I paid $10 for an hour tour which constituted of an elderly gentleman taking me through the three houses, talking all the while. I didn't agree with some of his over-arching statements on the era(mainly those about Puritans, women, and medicine), and I would have enjoyed more practical information about domestic life, but he was a good historian. I think if you've not seen 18th Century homes before it's a good museum to visit, because you get to see three in a row for a good price.

A cardboard statue of Good old George- because George Washington stayed here for some amount of time while planning the final campaign at Yorktown. That's pretty cool- I walked on the same floor as Washington and his staff. I saw his bedroom, too. It still had the original wallpaper, a sort of felted cranberry paisley. I saw two white-work quilts of glazed material that were period; I believe most of the furniture was reproduction. Photography was not allowed inside(sigh).

I love the colonial style of architecture, with the simplicity and beautiful wood. I would love to live in a colonial house someday. This was the nicer house, with a big foyer and a dance room. I figured it could hold about ten couples, comfortably.

This middle house also used to be a textile warehouse, up on the third floor. We went up the small curved staircase to see. It was pretty neat; all rough-hewn beams and wood pegs, and a loom and spinning wheels in storage. Out back there's a pretty little garden, and the weather was beautiful today.

 

I'm enjoying the old New England church buildings as well. They're so classy. The reflection you see here is a church across the street from the 18th Century glass panes of the middle house. After the tour I visited the cemetery of that church and slowly headed home. The roads here are very different in that there's a lot more curves and hills, obviously, that make for slow-fast-slow-fast driving; but there's also small towns all along the highways with stoplights. Just so you know, boys, the P vehicle is a 2004 Toyota Highlander hybrid. It drives real smooth and I enjoyed it, so there.

And if you've not seen enough of 18th Century coolness in this post, check out this really neat striped gown.